The Taoism Grandmaster (2018)

It is a really great drama worth to watch in your spare time. I binge watch it for a total of five days .. But if you have more time to spare watching it will be like 2-3 days because the first few episodes will really hook you in watching all of the 46 episodes. I am not a fan of long episode drama but this drama is definitely worth it.
Here are the reasons:

1. Story- the storyline here is superb. I think they really put an effort into making it. I feel that there is no filler here(maybe a little bit of flashback here and there). The story doesn't just make one character shine but all of them.. Every episodes are amazing. So if you think of skipping some episodes please don't you will regret it..

2. Acting cast- The actors here portray their role very well. Even the side characters, supporting characters, antagonist up to the main cast. One of the reason i watch it is because of the handsome actors and pretty actresses. Also, love the couples here.. not just for the main couple but also the supporting couples..

3. music- i feel that they only use 1 music here(the opening song) through the whole 46 episodes. even in scenes for action and sad scenes.. but i don't know why the opening song still fits on the scene.. maybe because i am just hook into watching it hehehe..

4.The Ending- i think most people will see it as a happy ending.. But some will see it as a sad ending if you are into romance because the male lead doesn't end up with anyone here.. You know the typical chinese drama.. If you are not into death don't watch it because this drama has a lot of it. I am not a fan of death too but i think those deaths are required to make it more exciting..

Overall... it is a must see drama that worth spending your time in the 46 episodes.

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For me the relationship value of this drama, made it worthwhile to watch. It really highlights character regardless of a person's background or so called status. It's refreshing and while there are plots, misunderstandings, annoyances they are balanced out with love, honesty, acceptance. and forgiveness. The romance factor was enough for me as well. I am over the over done, syrupy love relationships that some of these overrated dramas focus upon. I liked Magic Star a drama whose main cast were young people like this one. It was kind of cheesy yet I liked the bond that they had with one another.

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Watch it for Characters, not the Story

The Taoism Grandmaster focuses on the themes of friendship, found family, and fate. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys them because this drama has some of the best developed characters I've seen.

Heroes: The main leads of this story are all beyond reproach. Zhang Ling is smart and funny, Tie Lang is simple but not stupid, Feifei is strong and kind, while Liuli is dedicated and passionate. All of them work wonderfully as the main characters, and you can't get enough of them. Their friendship is what drives the story. The side characters are no slouches, either. This story has many of them, and each one gets a developed personality and an actual storyline. There were so many good ones that instead of writing them one by one, it would be easier to just copy-paste the entire list of characters. Everyone was that good.

Villains: Since the good guys get so much effort put into them, the villains ended up suffering for it. The main enemy is... random. Her scenes are often confusing, and by the end, you just learn to accept that she can do whatever the plot wants her to do while her actions and motivations are pretty random. However, the story has a few secondary villains that are pretty cool. They don't last long, but that's a minor problem.

Story: If you can turn off your brain and listen to the logic presented in the drama, then you're gonna enjoy it. The story is cohesive and well-developed within its own universe. All episodes are good and necessary. There were a few times I thought something was a little pointless, but later, it showed up that it was actually very important. It was all necessary to make the story work.

Overall, I enjoyed this drama a lot. It focused on friendship in all its forms, and while the story was often light-hearted, it did not shy away from showing the results of distrust or putting others too far before yourself.

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Written for teens/YA

Not very inspired world building using the more standard xianxia/wuxia tropes without adding anything significant. Pretty much standard hero quest.

Generally male-centric as usual which befits the target audience, one supposes. While it has a "balanced" by numbers gender representation, not so much on the intelligence/power scale of things.

Characters are presumably supposed to be young (late teens/early 20's possibly) and have the cognitive skills of teenagers. Either swing a sword, and if that fails, swing the sword some more. Planning? Ideas? Not so much. Saving their compatriots involve running to be physically close to them, getting caught in the same trap, not analyzing the enemy and just generally not having a plan to proceed. So the IQ level isn't set to be very high.

The main story only makes sense if one doesn't look too closely. Early, it seemed that there was some attempt to offer different perspectives on either side but the execution defaulted to "let's not make it hard to determine good vs evil because our audience is dumb".

Barely adequate acting but the material probably isn't there for any actor to get into it. So mostly saying their lines in the cheesiest method possible. CGI is below average by 2019 standards.

It all boils down to a barely watchable (with fast forwarding) drama that is only good for spending time at home during a quarantine. A drama made with little inspiration or vision in all aspects - acting, character, story, plot, dialogue, cinematography, music.

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Much potential... it did not live up to -by yoda

Mild Spoilers:
VFX suck in this series, but I overlooked it because it honestly had a pretty good start. Male lead's acting is kinda poor and cringy at best, especially when he tries to emote, Looks so hilarious.

Looking for romance? Well get ready to be disappointed, cause the second girl is one most ppl will end up shipping, but the writers won't let you have it. Nope. It's just another predictable plot. No chemistry whatsoever between the main lead and main female. Liu Li (second female) carried this drama for me. Once writers got rid of her, the drama died then and there.

The main lead is also pretty useless. He's smart and saves people in the beginning, but then suddenly becomes useless. People are saving his ass in every situation once the story picks up.

Story? it started off interesting, but pretty much from the beginning, I predicted the ending....too bad the writers didn't prove me wrong. It would have been more interesting if they didn't make it so predictable.

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I need Season 2 When coming

Need a season 2 please this storyline amazing and full superb this Hindi season superb nice ,................................................
Need a season 2 please this storyline amazing and full superb this Hindi season superb nice ,................................................

Need a season 2 please this storyline amazing and full superb this Hindi season superb nice ,................................................

Need a season 2 please this storyline amazing and full superb this Hindi season superb nice ,................................................

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If the ending was different....

When I watch the first few episodes, I thought this is one of my favorite dramas and it's so good. But the last few episodes are so disappointing. It's like the last few episodes are written by a different writer. All the people you love dies and after the character you love the most and expected so much died, What's there to watch? And the main actor ends with the female lead you don't like that much instead of the one you love! Normally you expect an ending with everyone (at least some people) be happy. But the ending here is the worst ending I've ever seen. Because there's no one left to be happy.

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Super fantastic. Great drama

Although I always go for romantic and happy ending dramas, i accidentally found this gem and watched it without knowing whether it has a happy ending or not. Because I think this was my second or third cdrama which I watched around the time of covid i guess. So I only hoped for FL and ML romance but the drama took me to whole another world where I guess the subtle romance was enough for me.

Now coming to story, it was the journey of a man who finally become the thaoism grndmaster and honestly saying the journey was filled with friendship, sportsmanship, leadership, love, brother love, teacher - student relations, unrequited love, triangle or i must say more than triangle polygonal love . I really liked the relationship between ML and his best friend SML . The ML is a humorous guy and has a particular charm. The SML too has a peculiar charm. Although FL is good her character was little annoying because the fact that she only realised ML's love at the last episodes.

ENDING
Yes it has a sad ending but it was worth it. Also I can assure you it is really worth it. Because I am person who always avoid sad ending but in this one it was necessarily needed. Because him losing his beloved ones in the journey to become thaoism grndmaster helped him to attain the state of mind like a god or thao maybe. Like he was not restricted by his earthly feelings. Well it's a journey with happiness, sadness, sweetness, bravery and the fact that the man started his journey from no powers to become the most powerful was literally epical.

If you are trying to know if it's worth it... Watch it I assure you it's the best .

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"Forget the distinction between Good and Bad...."

Like the song says, you can't watch this if you are too worried about what's good and bad about it. There's a lot of both.

First, the series drew me in with the male lead at the beginning. I liked his happy-go-lucky idea of going where the leaf blew, and his seeming wisdom in dealing with the plum-blossom evil. But for some reason that seemed like the high point of his character. I also liked the way the female lead literally "fell" in love. Though this is perhaps somewhat of an overused trope.

But it was all down hill from there. He seemed to never figure things out until they blasted him in the face. I guess you can say that he was like the leaf blown around with no sense of agency. But it was not a positive thing IMHO.

I also hated his face when he was crying. He seemed to turn into this ugly petulant child.

The female lead was OK. She had a crooked tooth that I kept noticing that was kind of distracting, but apart from that she had a strong personality that grew over time.

But both the male lead and the female lead seemed quite at sea some times. I guess if they were too smart it would have been hard to keep the plot moving but at times ... dang!

The secondary male lead drove me crazy. He was so presumptuous and narcissistic. It was like the world revolved around him---he was too self-absorbed to see anyone else's feelings, in particular those of the male lead, who was his best friend.

He looked like one of those high school football stars that gets the prettiest cheerleader and QBs the football team, but knows almost nothing.

There was a clever touch using a trope from Cyrano de Bergerac that fit his character perfectly, only I had far less sympathy for him than for Christian in the Cyrano de Bergerac play.

The secondary female lead had a great role that she played well. Her clingyness would have been annoying in an actual human but was endearing if you remember she was a fox creature. She was an "innocent abroad" who by choice ended up feeling the full weight of the human condition. I loved her bug also.

The secondary characters were mostly great. One thing that really annoyed me, though, was numerous instances of misplaced loyalty. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ten or fifteen times, uh...shame on me???"

I loved the untrammeled school. I loved the researcher. I loved how she never knew exactly what her inventions were going to do, and how her brother was always trying to palm them off on someone else.

Many of these secondary characters had great character arcs, developing as human beings as they went through trials and heartbreaks.

Minor spoiler: kunlun was amazing as someone who went from a strong, righteous, capable character to an absolute wreck. He was a flawed hero in the classical tragic sense. He made the struggle visible and that was IMHO really good acting.

One thing about kunlun that I found totally distracting---he looked just like the "Q" character in Star Trek Next Generation. Once I realized who he reminded me of I couldn't stop seeing it. But that's nobody's fault except my own.

I absolutely loved the 9-tailed fox as an evil character. Of course she was very overplayed, but these kinds of stories are quite cartoonish anyway. She had this giggle that at first seemed annoying but it really fit the character.


I really loved the contradictions in her character. She was desperately dependent on having people to accompany her and love her, but she abused every person she encountered. She was a total control freak. Just like real life, this character. The ultimate malignant narcissist. And her punishment fit the crime.

I also liked her agent among the "good" guys and how she changed from the way she started. Both she and kunlun were the victims of their weaknesses but also of the burden others placed on them, which they were unable to bear.

I REALLY HATED THE OVERACTING AND FLASHBACKS! For one thing if you binge-watch the series they are not very useful. And they always made an overacted scene long and drawn out. I really think they are trying to manipulate the audience into a certain emotional response, but it never worked for me because the original scene did not produce much of an emotional reaction in the first place. This use of flashbacks in dramas seems quite common and I wonder if it's just a way to pad the episode so it has enough length.

The grief of these people was earth shattering. Or at least annoying enough that I had to keep skipping forward. I'd skip forward a minute or so and they'd still be blubbering. And they all did it the same way! They just kept calling out the person's name over and over again. I guess they wanted to make sure they didn't forget it or something.

The problem with overacted melodramatic scenes is after a while they become funny.

The ending was actually really well done from a dramatic perspective. Unsatisfying in some ways but definitely in line with the main idea of the series. I've always found the idea of Tao interesting, and while this series uses it more as a prop and plot aid, there was enough allusion to it to pique my curiosity. What would a real Taoist grandmaster be like?

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